Imagine you are a potter whose prized vase slides from slippery fingers and falls to the floor.

If it is only cracked, you try to patch it. If it is shattered, you sweep the pieces into the waste bin and start over, building a new one.

That is the situation of our elected representatives in Ottawa. They are the potters whose prized possession, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), has slipped through their fingers and crashed on the floor. It is in pieces, cannot be put together properly and must be swept away and rebuilt.

The corruption and controversies are too serious and too longstanding to simply fix. It’s time for a complete rebuild.

The Canadian Forces changed dramatically in the years following the Second World War. They were unified in 1968, supposedly to improve efficiency and to save money. 

Unification damaged morale and although some unification has been pulled back, the forces have become more civilian-thinking and more bureaucratic. The soldier-warrior of the CAF of the past has become the soldier-manager of a bureaucracy more interested in careers, politics, and executive-style benefits and thinking.

Canadian Forces scandals have been continuous since the Somalia Affair in the early 1990s. That was when two members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, supposedly peacekeepers, beat to death a Somalia teenager.

Then came the coverup, which thankfully was revealed by hard-working CBC journalist. A Somalia Commission of Inquiry, led by a federal court judge, was started in 1994, but was cut short by the federal government with the approach of the 1997 election.

Before it ended, the inquiry issued ‘Dishonoured Legacy’, a report highly critical of the Canadian Forces’ military and civilian leadership. 

“Our soldiers searched, often in vain, for leadership and inspiration,” said the report.

It also said: “Many of the senior officers who testified before us, reveal much about the poor state of leadership in our armed forces and the careerist mentality that prevails at the Department of National Defence.” 

The Somalia Affair was a national shame. It revealed white supremacy thinking within the forces and resulted in the disbanding of the highly-touted airborne regiment. Also, it resulted in huge loss public support for the armed forces.

So here we are again, swimming in a torrent of reports of sexual abuse and corruption within the forces. And, it’s not something new. Sexual misconduct in the forces has been reported for years with little effective change to correct it.

In 2014, Macleans Magazine published a major report on sexual harassment. A year later a former Supreme Court justice conducted an investigation detailing sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the CAF. A year after that Statistics Canada issued a report on these problems.

Now there are so many sexual misconduct investigations of the CAF’s top leadership, and so many resignations, that you need a playbook to follow the action.

Earlier this year Lt.-Col. Eleanor Taylor, one of the country’s top female soldiers, resigned, saying she is sickened by sexual misconduct in the armed forces and dismayed that it has taken so long to bring the problem into the open.

"Some senior leaders are unwilling or (perhaps unable) to recognize that their behaviour is harmful both to the victim and to the team," Taylor wrote in her resignation letter.

"Some recognize the harm but believe they can keep their behaviour secret. Perhaps worst of all are those in authority, who should know better, but lack the courage and tools to confront the systemic issue."

The first step in tearing down and rebuilding the armed forces must be the resignation or firing of Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan. He seems to be an honourable and decent man but in six years has done little to fix the scandalous problems in the CAF, which now are held in contempt by many Canadians.

Last week the House of Commons voted to censure Sajjan for what it called mishandling of the ongoing sexual misconduct crisis. 

It’s now up to the prime minister to do the honourable thing and initiate the tearing down and rebuilding. With an election likely in the offing, that is not likely because doing what is right and honourable at election time just doesn’t fit with the way politics are done these days.

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One positive aspect of climate change is the theory that it warms our northern reaches making them less hospitable to blackflies, the spring curse of anyone who spends time in or near the woods.

That is something to cheer, and there has been plenty of cheering this spring in parts of Ontario where the hated blackfly has been little seen, or in some cases, totally absent.

It’s true that parts of Ontario normally tormented by blackflies have been spared this year. But climate change is not the reason.

The blackfly season is roughly three to four weeks, starting in early to mid-May and its intensity is dictated by the spring runoff. This past winter saw a lighter than usual snowpack combined with an earlier spring runoff. Less snow melting earlier was not good for blackfly populations. 

Blackflies must have plenty of clear, cold running water in the spring to develop their eggs. When the spring runoff is light and ends earlier than normal, blackfly populations have reduced chances of developing. 

That’s the opposite story for our other most despised insect – the mosquito. Mosquitoes love puddles or any other places that collect stagnant water. They will even hatch their eggs in a bottle cap filled with old rain water.

There are more than 2,000 species of blackfly, 161 existing in Canada with 42 species identified in the Algonquin Park area. Only a few species in our part of the world actually bite to get a blood meal for their eggs. But their bites are nasty – actual puncture wounds that can cause swelling, headaches, nausea, fever and even swollen lymph nodes. 

Fewer blackflies might be reason for many of us to celebrate, but fewer blackflies actually are not good news. Scientists say that a healthy blackfly presence is a sign of a healthy environment. 

Clouds of the pests tell us that clear and cold running water is nearby; water filtered by a healthy forested watershed.

Blackflies are making a comeback in parts of North America and their populations are increasing. That’s because of the environmental movement’s pressure for cleanup of polluted areas and creating clean, running water. 

Raw sewage, effluents from paper mills, and runoff of various other industrial waste and agricultural chemicals have been stopped or at least controlled because of pressure from environmentalists. 

One example is the cleanup of the English-Wabigoon River system in Northwestern Ontario. That system was basically a sewer with mercury poisoning affecting wildlife and poisoning Indigenous communities. 

Tens of millions of dollars have been spent cleaning up the river system, although some mercury and other contaminants still exist in the water and will take many more years to eliminate. 

There are numerous other stories of water systems being cleaned up and studies have shown blackfly populations are recovering there.

However, some people and some governments still don’t get it. Pesticides mixed with diesel fuel and kerosene are still being dumped into streams to kill the larvae of blackflies and other insects. 

Recovering blackfly populations mean more irritation to we humans. But other animals, and birds, also are affected. Blackflies have been known to kill animals such as deer because hundreds of bites can cause severe blood loss. 

They also are known to drive loons from their nests. If you see a nesting loon constantly shaking its head, it likely is trying to shake off a cloud of blackflies. 

Birds get their revenge by eating millions of blackflies, and mosquitoes, providing some control of populations. Bats and dragonflies also eat them, 

Some areas have noticed an absence of dragonflies this year and that’s not a good thing. Those heli-like critters not only knock down blackfly populations, they provide food for birds and fish. 

Dragonflies, like blackflies, require clean water and stable oxygen levels, and are considered reliable indicators of healthy natural ecosystems. 

So, the blackfly, like so many things in life, is a genuine Catch-22. Cleaning up environmental pollution increases blackfly populations, which increase human irritations. More pollution decreases their numbers. 

All things considered, a little irritation a few weeks a year, is easier to accept than a polluted world. 

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The sorrowful story of Canadian residential schools, established to wipe away Indigenous languages and culture, is back in the headlines.

What returned it to the forefront is the discovery of unmarked graves at a former Kamloops residential school for Indigenous children. It is believed the graves contain the remains of 215 children, presumed to have been undocumented deaths at the school.

The Canadian government along with several Christian churches operated 139 residential schools between 1831 and 1996. The schools were designed to turn the children into “normal” Canadians by stripping them of their “Indianness.”

An estimated 6,000 children died at the schools from disease, accidents, neglect and abuse but there are no complete official records, so an accurate figure is unknown. Most of the dead children were buried on school grounds, often in unmarked graves.

There are few revelations in the latest residential school news, except that ground-penetrating radar found many more bodies than expected. That technology likely will find other remains at other residential schools with unmarked graves.

The Kamloops discovery has reopened wounds from the residential school system and debate about who was wrong, who has and hasn’t apologized and why there has not been enough action taken on promises of reconciliation.

That is unfortunate because much of the debate is focussed on the past and is draining time and energy from the most important action that needs to be taken now.

Almost everything there is to know about what happened in residential schools is known. It has been the subject of piles of studies, books, news stories and major commission reports such as the Truth and Reconciliation Report (2015) the 1996 report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

It’s all history, and while history is critically important and should not be forgotten, it is time to focus on the present and what we do not know: How many unmarked graves are there, how many children are buried in those graves, who are they, and what is the plan for giving their remains proper burial in proper cemeteries with proper markers?

A variety of political figures, government agencies, churches and religious orders have been blamed for the residential schools’ nightmare. However, all Canadians, even those not born in the residential school era, must share the blame, shame and the responsibility for doing what needs to be done now.

We all must because residential schools were a shameful act of racism committed by our country. And, this racism still exists in Canada today with not enough effort to eliminate it.

It’s racism that dozens of Indigenous communities are without clean drinking water despite years of government promises to clean up polluted water.

It’s racism that we have done next to nothing to act on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action. The Commission called the residential school system “cultural genocide” but only 10 of its 94 calls to action have been completed in the last six years.

Four years ago, on National Aboriginal Day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said:

“No relationship is more important to Canada than the relationship with Indigenous Peoples.”

If he really believes that he should personally lead urgent actions to restore the dignity taken from our Indigenous brothers and sisters by the residential school system. Action now, not limping action dragging over the next five, 10, 15 years.

It is urgent that the bones of those children who died in residential schools be placed in well-maintained cemeteries where people can see who they were and understand the shame of what happened to them.

Those cemeteries and the children they hold will remind us that this kind of shameful abuse against our own people can never be tolerated again. They will remind all that Canada is a racist country but that we are working to change that.

They also will be a reminder that the world is populated now by only one species of human being, not the many different forms of humans that existed thousands of years ago. One species with different cultures, different languages, different religious beliefs and different skin colours.

But one species of human beings, basically the same and all deserving equality and each other’s respect.

 It’s refreshing to hear a politician say what he or she is thinking, rather than just tonguing to lick up votes.

“It begs the damn question: what the hell is going on in the United States of America?” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said following the massacre of nine people in last week’s rail yard shooting.

That was just after the San Jose killings last Wednesday, but just before Sunday’s shooting of two dozen people at a Miami rap party.

“What the hell is wrong with us, and when are we going to come to grips with this?” he asked. “When are we going to put down our arms – literally and figuratively – our politics, stale rhetoric, finger-pointing, all the hand wringing, consternation that produces nothing except more fury and frustration ... over and over and over again?”

Exactly. What is wrong with Americans and America, a madhouse of “rinse and repeat” cycle of mass shootings now averaging roughly 1.5 a day, based on figures supplied by the U.S. Gun Violence Archive? The Archive defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more persons are shot and killed or wounded.

There have been roughly 18,000 gun deaths in the U.S. this year to date, more than 600 of them children 17 or younger. Just under 1,500 other children have been wounded.

Individual Americans own 393 million firearms, which is about 46 per cent of civilian-held firearms worldwide, or 120.5 for every 100 residents. Those figures come from the Small Arms Survey, an independent research project in Switzerland.

And, they are buying more. Two million guns were sold in the U.S. this past January alone. Two million new guns in 31 days. That’s on the heels of the 17 million bought last year.

Research at the University of Chicago shows that 39 per cent of American households own guns, up from 32 per cent in 2016.

The country is gun crazy. And the crazy things Americans do with the increasing number of guns grows by the day. 

It’s not just guns and killings. Other signs of America’s deteriorating mental state are becoming more evident. 

There’s the Covid disaster, of course. Thirty-four million cases with 600-plus thousand deaths making the United States, probably the world’s most advanced country, with one of the world’s worst records in handling the disease. 

Then there is the drug pandemic. 

Addiction Centre, a company providing information on addiction, says that drug overdose deaths have tripled in the U.S. since 1990. Also, more than 20 million Americans have at least one addiction and that alcohol and drug addiction costs the U.S. $600 million a year.

Then there’s the racism, an issue that needs no elaboration. 

The country’s healthcare system is a mess; too many people just don’t have quality health care. Ditto the education system, in which college costs are far too high and too many kids are condemned to slum schools. 

Adding all that up, it’s fair to say that the quality of American life is lower than many other developed countries. Americans carry heavy debt loads, work long hours to lighten them and have little time to enjoy themselves and appreciate each other. 

Their politics and politicians are no help to them. Ideas, actions, legislation are frozen in blocks of icy partisanship. The U.S. political system now is about as helpful to its citizens as a frozen ballpark frank. 

It’s an emotionally insecure country, with people seemingly wanting to protect themselves from each other. Why else would they have so many guns? 

There is little intelligent focus on the issues in the U.S. and Americans really don’t know much about the rest of the world. They are too consumed with ‘getting ahead’, working long hours to pay the bills resulting from trying to get ahead and with buying guns to kill each other. 

Much hope has been placed in the presidency of Joe Biden. But he’s only the triage guy in a packed emergency room. The country needs major long-term treatment to get healthy before the Chinese and the Russians move in and start euthanizing the population. 

America is one sick puppy. We Canadians should be concerned because Americans are our best friends. 

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